BEST NEW ARTIST: 100 GECS

There are a million ways to try and describe 100 gecs, but none of them are going to do it justice. 

If Skrillex had been in a ska band instead of an emocore one?
Hello Kitty meets Death Grips.
Sophie and Sleigh Bells walk into a bar…

I guess the only way to truly experience America’s most bombastic new superstars is to give them a listen yourself.  So that’s what we’ve got for you. A Best New Artist post where we’re going to let the music speak for itself instead of trying to convince you with fancy words.  Okay, we’ll try some fancy words out too, but just trust us and give these a listen all the way through.

There is a time in every music blogger’s life when they hear something so outside their realm of understanding that they consider tossing in the figurative towel-- though I guess in our case it would be more like the keyboard-- a literal and figurative “too old for this shit.” 

[Insert gif of Danny Glover from the Lethal Weapon franchise. How do you download gifs? We’re old. Can someone under the age of 20 help us?]

But today is not that day.  Not by a long shot.  100 gecs is just the right kind of WTF for We Are: The Guard.  Dylan Brady and Laura Les blur the lines between pop, punk and EDM to create something so completely new that it’s poised to shake the entire music industry to its core. 

At least we can only hope.

MONEY MACHINE

“money machine” is a literal bop.  One that’s so catchy, it’s going to be stuck in your head months after first hearing it.  Whether you like it or not.  So you might as well just admit to liking it already and get it over with you little piss baby.  It’s just going to be easier for all of us if you do. Is it pop punk? Electro? Hip-hop ? All three?  Who cares!  Why do we have to genrify everything?  This song straight up rules and is likely cause the gnarliest mosh pits the 2020’s have ever seen.  100 gecs have been touring as the opening act for Brockhampton and I can only imagine that crowd getting absolutely hype to this track on every single date.

800DB CLOUD

Moving along 100 gecs’ full-length album 1000 gecs and you’ll come upon “800db cloud.”  Long gone are the catchy hooks of “money machine,” replaced with sound design so full and vicious it feels like being pounded in the face with a sledgehammer. Not appealing?  Why not? This is the same crowd that gave Aphex Twin a 9.0 on musicspoon.net, isnt it? The guitar rips, pushed through some kind of computer-interface until it’s muddled and noisy, underpinned by a drum machine and wrapped up with the dueling vocals of these two buckwild singing voices.  This song is all the right kinds of messy. The kind that you’re desperately attracted to even if you won’t admit it around your more uptight friends.

STUPID HORSE

As a former, and still-recovering ska fan, “stupid horse” speaks to me in a way that I can’t even begin to explain and still look cool to y’all. So I won’t even try. I’ll just own it. I love ska. Two-step horns and pop-punk songwriting pushed through a chiptune filter to create a song that feels simultaneously steeped in the 90s, but also a futuristic representation of what people in the 90s thought music would sound like in 2020. This is maybe the greatest song I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

RINGTONE

Journey through sound design and we’re back into straight, catchy-as-hell pop music.  “ringtone” can stand up against any banger from that bizarre era where techno and pop bled together into one cohesive sound.  The Aquas, Aces of Base and Vengaboys of the world.  Put this one up against “Barbie Girl” and I swear it’ll stand up as one of the great bubblegum-pop tracks of all time.  “ringtone” is a perfect b-side to “money machine.”  But if that’s the case, where do the rest of these fit in?

HAND CRUSHED BY A MALLET

This one legitimately belongs in a Skrillex set or Sweater Beats emo nite mix. Maybe even at the now defunct Low End Theory. It blurs the line between screamo and lo-fi beats music in a way that just shouldn’t be. A Frankenstein of sounds that works despite its best intentions. When the beat comes in on “hand crushed by a mallet” it’s clear that these gecs aren’t just messing around. And we can’t wait to see where this project goes next. 

From deep within the murky depths of the Los Angeles River emerged a creature: 50% raver, 50% comedian, 10% Robotcop. Kurt Kroeber doesn’t own a dog, operates Soundbleed (the world’s only dance party comedy talk show rave), and is down to party with you. Come up some time and say “Hey dude!” But definitely make sure to casually drop the secret Illuminati password.